Sunday, July 31, 2011

People really are so gorram complicated it's jsu tnot funny. It is entirely unfathomable to me why people will put up so many barriers and make others jump through so many hoops just to even be called "friend." Ok, yes, true enough there's that one guy that ruined it for you, but being guarded is one thing, being a manipulator is another.

A close friend of mine simply said to me today "It's all a game really..." and of course, I was perplexed. We were talking about Captain America and I said if I ever had the chance I'd totally throw it into the actress who played Peggy, the English officer who was assigned to the project. Her name is Hayley Atwell btw, amazing woman, but I dared my friend to watch the movie and not say the same. He said to me "it's all a game really..." and my first thought was "life? sex?" wo which he replied "just the whole social thing."

People will consistently make you go through shit and jump through hoops, some more than others, before you even think about getting personal with them, relationship or otherwise. I suppose this has many reasons, but to some people, like myself, who are socially retarded, think of it this way: You are a level 1 character who is thrust into a world where you need to survive among characters who are currently level 35 or higher, who have pillaged, run many dungeons, worked hard and obtained the best gear for their level all far more than you can possibly, or care to, imagine. Reality check: There are no giant rats to fight to level up in this storyline. Instead, your best hope is finding a group that'll take you into your party and show you the ropes and run you through a couple times. For the most part this is possible, however many groups are different than others.

All you can really do is throw your dice and hope and pray you come out lucky. Just be sure that you are the one holding your dice. Never trust them to someone else, and hope and pray that the boss your facing throws a shit roll and you gain ultimate victory, pillage the loot, and walk away with confidence and pride. It's a lot of hoping and praying at first, but nothing is gained skillwise without a lot of work and a little bit of luck. Just dance in front of the mighty bronze turtle and pray that you enver encounter a wolverine named Phallus... because you know there's a reason he's named that.

Keep your Bacon hot, your Ammo cold and plentiful, and clutch onto your dice for dear life. Be the master of your own destiny.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Links are now clickable! I don't know why I didn't fiddle aroudn with this more. I'm retarded.

Metal has always been a very, very controversial music to most people. After watching "A Headbanger's Journey" once again, I've decided to talk to you all about my personal reasons as to why I Identify with this style of music.

But first, a brief clarification: Metal isn't all guttoral screaming, rough harsh vocals, uber fast guitar, satanic, or crazy stupid unsophisticated music for unsophisticated people. Sure there is some that is satanic, screaming guttoral vocals, and unsophisticated, but that's where personal taste comes in. Most of the satanic metal originates in the Norwegian Black Metal genre, and I stay away from that stuff. Never could get into it, never wanted to.

Metal is in fact, a very broad genre that's been around sicne the days of psychadelic rock in the late 60's with bands liek Blue Cheer, Cream, and furthering in bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. It holds its roots firmly in Classical and Blues, and will remain ever true to them. From roots in psychadelic rock, Original Hard Rock, Early Punk, Shock Rock, and British style Blues, came Metal as a full fledged genre. Many subgenres have emerged through the flames, each with their own distinct sound and style. The rest is history my friend.

For me however, Metal represents something. I admit, at first I was scared of losing my shit because I just didn't know! Metal had this cloud of stereotype around it, but I soon discovered it was so much more. In high school I was obsessed with bands like AC/DC, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton/Cream (and I still actively listen to them, great music), but in grade 10 I picked up my first guitar. I had the intention of listening to and playing songs I liked (who doesnt?) but living in a small town such as Rock Creek, the closest music store was in Kelowna, an hour and a half away, and I didn't drive. Only dial-up internet existed so torrenting was out. Though soon enough, I bought Megadeth's "Greatest Hits: back to the start" and my world changed. I discovered Thrash Metal. Ok sure I'd listened to and heard Metallica, but one band isn't enough for a full taste. It's like only ever driving a Ford Pinto and claiming you know what it's like to drive a Shelby Cobra. IT AIN'T RIGHT!!! But then it was born. Somehow, the guitars, the vocals, the drums, it all spoke to me on some spiritual level. The music took me in, made me it's apprentice, and trained me in it's way.

Music is subjective, but it spoke to my interests and views. It seemed to come from the same sheltered history that I did, and understood my thoughts and desires better than anyone did. I got along with my parents, but there's conflicting interests. I wanted to be a guitar player, they wanted different. The music was there for me during a lot of dark times and dark thoughts. It didn't encourage it, it jsut said "hey man, I understand." From Megadeth, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple I discovered Ozzy's Solo Career, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, Judas Priest, and so on. After Graduating high school I started training myself to have a blues foundation on Guitar, and that's what kicked me off. However when I moved out to Kelowna from Vancovuer, the roomates I lived with opened me up to a greater world of Metal. Power Metal, Modern Thrash, Viking Metal, Symphonic Power Metal, all of it seemed to echo what I had been feelign all along. I craved a desire to be unique and different from the mainstream, and although I'm a small part of a large force, it's not a force that demands you to be sheep. I have opinions, I think about shit before I form opinions, I don't reiterate, I'm passionate about certain things, I get angry at issues, but don't beleive in taking it out on individuals, and I'm a brother to those close to me. The music doesn't alienate me, it encourages me to be who I am, regardless of who that is. It respects me for it. It teaches me to be decisive, confident but not arrogant, understanding, respectful, but also strong in will and open but firm in belief.. It was there for me when going through tough shit in high school, when I was trying to decide on a career, when no one else seemed it understand what I was trying to get across tot hem, and it understood my unique history as an individual. It doesn't tell me I'm weird or different, it just tells me I'm my own person and I respect that. Since then I've taken metal guitar lessons and routinely play metal/rock/blues music on my guitar for the sake of it. It's an energy release, but it's a technical challenge. I like challenges.

You understand that I won't talk about the exact shit I went through. It's jsut rather not spread personal stories over the internet jsut yet. Not until I know exactly who's reading this.

I was thuroughly sad when Ronnie James Dio died. I still salute him every day. I wake up int he morning and I have metal playing on my computer first thing. It's a good wake up. If I've had a bad day, it's there, if I've had a great day, it's all like FUCK YEAH ROCK THAT BITCH. I live in Vancouver now, again, and hey, if any of you know any musicians int he area that can use a jam buddy, I'm in!

There is more to my interests and music than metal, but this is the genre I always come back to (that and Classic Rock) because it's reliable and I'm ever loyal.

It confronted some of the things I feared most, and encouraged me to battle through them. I'm a better person for it. I've helped my friends do the same, but it's nice that something is there for you too. Not saying my friends aren't, but the soul needs to be fed too, without soul, you're emotionally dead and look for gratification instead of working for happiness.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Okay, yes, so the comic is directed at Audi, but hey, the principle is still the same.

I do quite thuroughly understand that my last blog post was filled with ramblings and inscessant jabber, so today I will do my absolute best to keep you captivated and prove that my blog isn't just for insomniacs.

I voted to extinguish the HST. This tax saw a shift from the old GST/PST system, GST being the federal tax at 5% and the PST being the provincial tax at 7%. Before the HST was introduced, fusing the two, food, restaurants, hotels, and other things were only taxed at 5%. The Provincial Government, without warning, changed the system and all things that were previously exempt from the PST were now taxed at the usual rate of 12%. In a nutshell it was supposed to save businesses a huge portion on administrative costs and pass the savings onto the consumer, or use that savings to hire more people, but it seemed more apparant that most businesses were rewarding themselves with bonuses instead of hiring. Unemployment slowly went up and there seemed to be bitter resentment. I voted to extinguish it because The Federal government collected all the HST revenue, then distributed it to the provinces. Why should the provinces have to ask for money to spend on programs they are responsible for, such as Healthcare and Education when they had a PST to collect the revenue themselves. Made no sense.

Either way, we Candians are a fucking weird people. We honestly get riled up about Tariffs and Taxes, not because we don't like paying them (which some don't, don't get me wrong) but because we simply like knowing what our government is doing with the money. If they promise healthcare or education or defense or what have you, we tend to be ok with it. We're not about to talk about how our government should privatize everything, or cut corporate taxes to create jobs, or if we should bomb some country because they had the balls to fight and elect a leader! No, we're not like that. I mean come on, we're fucking Canada! We watch hockey, apologize to random people because, hey, we feel for you, bitch about softwood lumber and lack of tariffs, and revel in our world and WHO acclaimed healthcare system.

Seemed odd to add all of that in there, I know, but to my readers in the UK and other parts of the world, it should give you a taste of why we Canadians fucking rule, or at least what we actually do when we drink beer and chop down trees.

But hey, all stuff about how wonderful Canada is aside, my day was fairly uneventful, until about 5 PM. I ask you this: When faced with a challenging, potentially daunting hopeless task of deciding how and when it is time for you to face the music, put the boss key into the door, and stare down Ganondorf in an all guts or no glory-esque cinematic...you get the fucking chills right? That was me today, when faced with the possibiliy that, in roughly a year, I may be the proud owner of a Dodge Challenger. Today, at 5PM, I test drove one for 15 minutes and holy fuck did that thing grab me by the balls and beat me so fucking senseless that when I was done my only possible response was to crawl with my one working arm and beg the car to let me go. It was fucking amazing! Obviously I do not have the money for it now, but come July 4th I'll be a certified Audio Engineer, hopefully with a decent job lined up. If so, CHALLENGER YOU ARE FUCKING MINE! Will there be many episodes of me routinely falling in front of the car screaming "I'M NOT WORTHY!"? Hell yes. Will there be a lot of drinking in celebreation? Let's just say I know a guy who can get a lot of good whiskey...

Sadly that's my Dilemma, wait a year for what I want, or not go with it at all. It has become a goal, a challenge if you will. I like Challenges. Audio Engineering and finding a music job will be a Challenge, so will owning this car. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! Rather... CHALLENGER ACCEPTED!!!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

To follow the same tradition I used for my blogs in livejournal, I'm going to find a webcomic that reflects well what I'm going to be talking about here

Expect a lot of XKCD.

http://www.xkcd.com/220/

So I picked this comic because, well, jsut last night I came into a questioning phase, a phase wherein I suffered an existential crisis. Remember when I talked about what I was going to talk about? I know I know I promised you a little about me, and believe me I'll get to that, but first this. Basically I questioned of myself am I actually living, or jsut simply alive? My friend Adam once proposed to me a question very similar, but in videogame terminology. The question carried on as "Do you feel you are going through life on the main quest and advancing to level 40 before you assault the boss? Or are you jsut putzing around doing a bunch of side quests unrelated to the story and you're still level 3?" He was playing a lot of Oblivion at the time and, my understanding anyways, in Oblivion you don't level up unless you do main story quests. Either way it was a profound question, and honestly I had difficulty answering it. I still do. Yes the point of life is to progress and advance yourself, to exist, and to do what is best for you and further your goals and desires so you achieve what you set out to do, but no matter how driven and goal-oriented one is, it is always wise to slow down and smell the roses. The big end boss of life is one no one has yet to conquer (except maybe Jesus, if you're keen on that faith, hard to say for me really) is Death. It is a natural part of life and the very thing that makes us appreciate it, so why try and arrive at the destination sooner? I find myself I'm more about putzing around at level 3 doing everything I can because, even if it's unrelated to what you want to do, experience is experience and everyone should be a teacher, because we can learn and further from each other.

My crisis was simple, what am I actually doing with my life and myself? I felt dead, and unmotivated. A long talk with a good friend of mine on World of Warcraft quickly set me straight. The real reason I felt dead was simple: I felt as if I needed to be loved by someone in relationship form to feel needed and valued, when in truth I should and do feel that way already. Sure it's always nice to have someone, it is what makes us truly whole, but we don't need to actively seek that one person, things will usually fall into place if you let them happen. I'm onyl 21, and shouldn't be worrying about those things. I have bigger fish to fry, I ahve amain quest to trudge through! Though it brought up another reason why I felt dead. I'm my own person, and I live with my parents. I feel I need my own space, however I currently have little means to do so. School combined with current expenses leaves me drained, and I haven't a viable roomate as of yet. True currently the pros outweigh the cons, but I often feel I'm a disappointment, which of course isn't at all true, though I'm consistently in a state of self scrutiny and critisism in every aspect of my life. I feel it's the only way I improve, which is great for me, being a guitar player, to scrutinize my artistic ability, but for EVERY aspect, it ends up leaving me worried about shit I have no business worry about. That'll just shorten life! I've honestly been better than I was, but last night was, different. I guess I'm jsut trying to find my own little niche in this world and I'd rather not force anyone out of theirs, instead peacefully coexisting. But I'm going to rub elbows, conflict is a part of life. Question therefore becomes how will I handle it? Needless to say I solved my crisis, my solution was simply don't change who I am for anyone, don't compromise the aspects about me that make me who I am. In that I gain confidence, I gain pride, I gain a sense of direction and motivation, and I gain inspiration.

So in short, existential crisis was simple: If What I'm to have learn was what I already knew, did I learn anything? Yes I did, because my purpose was to set out learning something that ended up coming back to what I already knew, I had simply forgotten at the time. The purpose of learning is to learn!

Anyways, as promised, a little about me: If you're asleep or have closed the webpage by now, well I can't say I'm surprised. if you're still reading, you either have insomnia or actually consider this waste of webspace drabble and shit interesting.

I'm 21 years old, been walking this earth for almost 22 winters now.
I have Nordic descent and blood in me, mostly Danish, but also Norwegian. English, Scottish, French, Welsh, Italian, Polish, Swiss, German, and probably a few I'm forgetting. Danish/Norwegian genes won out over everything, so thus, VIKINGS RULE!
Speaking of which, I am the son of Thor. It is acceptable if you just call me Thor.
I play guitar, have been for 7 years now. Yes, Thor weilds an axe. I lost my hammer... somewhere in Asgard. If you find it please call me.
I own three guitars, some say too many, none of them are guitar players. I have a Jay Turser SG, Fender HSS Stratocaster, and a Jackson King V Demmelition.
I play mostly Metal and Rock styles, but I love playing blues too. Always learning.
I'm currently drinking Sleeman Honey Brown Lager.
I'm an avid Vancovuer Canucks fan. That isn't going to change. Don't try and make it Change.
I'm a huge fan of music. GOOD Music. I know Music is a very subjective Genre but really, there is universally bad music out there. I will go on rants about this. My Top 3 genres are Metal, Classic Rock and Blues. Will venture into Modern rock, and depending on the day, the order of those genres change. Do not like Country or Hip Hop, some Pop is tolerable but most often annoying as hell. Some days I wish I owned a shotgun.
I love movies of most sorts, save Horror. Do not like horror. Never could get into it. Overactive imagination.
I rant a lot. You'll find this possibly amusing.
I am currently single. Not sure when that'll change, but it'll change for the right reason.
I tend to write a lot...just incase you didn't notice.
Religion? Curious subject, interesting theology and morality, questionable practices.
I'm currently studying, or rather will be studying, to be an Audio Engineer. Yes, I'm going to record shit. Good shit.
I'm a very open person, I like to joke around and skirt the bounds of what is and isn't appropriate. Usually makes people laugh, but I also say sorry for a lot of things.
I also tend to think too much, incase you didn't notice above...
Above all I am a paladin. What I mean by that is I'm a great shield. I stand up for my friends and would rather take a thousand hits than see any one of my friends take one. I'm a protector and a guardian, teaching others, making sure things are safe, posess righteous anger (hence the ranting...) and I do my best to do what I feel is right. So, don't make me angry or pissed. A pissed off Thor is a Thor you don't want to have to deal with.
I have a superhero Alias: Bra-Man (ok fine, it was kind of stolen from Least I Could Do but hey, I didn't see Rayne Summers at any one of my epic parties!)
I'm also known by: Sploch, Captain Irrelevant, Rothgan (or Rotharia on WoW)
Politically speaking I am small c conservative. That means I see society as a connected web where all levels are equally as important and what happens to one will undoubtedly affect the other. There is no separation, in fact it's a ripple and a wave. So I vote based upon who I feel is best reflective of this philosophy. Symbiotic bonding!
Honestly speaking, I'm a huge geek. Sci-Fi, Comic books, you name it. Not only am I Thor's son, but I'm a Jedi Guardian as well. Along with being a Paladin, I cannot stand for injustice and I admire Truth, Honesty, Understanding and Compassion. I consider Star wars (episodes IV, V, VI) to be among the best movies ever made. Geeks fuckign rule, and we are some of the smartest people you'll ever meet. That's why I think too much and admire little shit that most would ignore. Geeks are awesome, and we fucking rule. I'm among the ruling class, mainly BECAUSE I rule.

If you've read all that...actually I haven't thought of an award for you. Perhaps a hug when I see you next? Man hugs are acceptable. Either way, that's my past two days in a nutshell. If anyone finds this interesting...you either have respect for me, like me, love me, or have nothing better to do. :)

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Just to let you all know this is my new blog. I won't be posting on Livejournal anymore because, well, You kinda have to sign up to livejournal to read my blog and no one really wants to do that.

Here I'll be sharing with you some of my thoughts, experiences, memories, musings, music, dillemas, crises, failures, and successes. If any of you wish to read into them (yes, I'll make them interesting) then join me as I grind my axe, sharpen my sword, and hack and slash my way through reality, life, and conquer your hearts.

Whatever happens, I'll post it here. Probably starting my next post with a little about me (probably to follow later tonight). I'll post this shit on facebook for anyone who decides to read it. I know there'as alot of you who talk to me but don't entirely know who I am just yet. In truth, I really don't know how to answer that question because I'm still making those discoveries myself, but come with me and perhaps I will share my discoveries with you, and yours with me. After all, we may all be in this together, but our own experiences are unique to ourselves. Just cause we're all in the same boat doesn't mean we all see the same killer whale. We're jsut all trudging and smashign our way through life as best as we know how to, and hey, sure we all arrive at the same destination, it's the gorram journey that makes it interesting.

Come, and I will unlock for you my secrets to Life, metal, and the universe.